Music Criticism - Vaccination

Do I suggest a remedy? I do. I suggest several remedies. I suggest that we throw out all critics who use vague and general terms. Not merely those who use vague terms because they are too ignorant to have a meaning; but the critics who use vague terms to conceal their meaning, and all critics who use terms so vaguely that the reader can think he agrees with them or assents to their statements when he doesn't.

The first credential we should demand of a critic is his ideograph of the good; of what he considers valid writing, and indeed of all his general terms. Then we know where he is. He cannot simply stay in London writing of French pictures that his readers have not seen. He must begin by stating that such and such particular works seem to him 'good', 'best', 'indifferent', 'valid, 'non-valid'.

-Ezra Pound, "How to Read".

Scope

At the moment, my music writing is limited to the kin of rock and roll, i.e. the genres that derived and spread outward from the 1950's melting pot of Folk, Blues, and Country music. This covers a gamut ranging from Soul music to Technical Death Metal. This is not to say that the children of Rock music represent the total domain of my interest. In fact, my love of Jazz is nearly on par with the subjects of my writing, and my interest in Hindustani Classical music is not insignificant either.

However, I have spent my entire life listening to the progeny of rock music, while my broader interests are at most a decade old. Hence I do not feel that I have expertise to write about them. This is slowly changing with Jazz, but I still have a long way to go. Even if I live a full life I will likely never have enough of a grasp of Hindustani Classical to write anything worthwhile about Shankar or Chaurasia.

This does not mean that I will refrain from making asides to genres outside this intimate familiarity if I feel that they will add to the reader's understanding of my subject. It simply means that at this juncture I do not feel comfortable treating them directly.

Purpose

Any worthwhile piece of music should have a purpose behind it. It does not have to, nor should it, be a purpose wholly explicable by language (the end result of this is either mediocre propaganda or a piss-poor concept album), but when a listener puts on a track or an album, it should be readily apparent why this musician(s) chose to walk into the studio and record.

Technicality

Good music can range from incredibly elaborate to astonishingly primitive. A major virtue of primitive music is that a layman can readily detect the significance of, or whether their even is any, purpose behind it. The more technically proficient a musician is, the easier it is for them to swindle the ignorant with rapid fire scales, ornate chord progressions, and time signatures that require a trip to Wikipedia to count out properly, so that they think they are witnessing a manifestation of the divine when in reality all that is entering their ears is the urge for financial gain, idolization, and sexual intercourse brought to sound. This isn't to say that any of those urges, if addressed directly,cannot be the source of worthwhile music. Consider The Beatles' "Taxman", The Stone Roses' "I Wanna Be Adored", or Danzig's "I'm the One". It just has to be expressed openly instead of concealed behind a facade. One cannot mistake why Crass decided to record “Punk is Dead”, whereas even the most articulate listener will have difficulty determining what value there is in virtuoso guitar music beyond that which is valuable in a circus performance. Contrastingly, the pop music one normally hears on the radio readily announces its banal intentions (albeit occasionally dressed up in impressive studio abstractions), while “In the Court of the Crimson King” can be studied endlessly without one ever reaching the depth of its expressive capacity.

Emotion

Of all the art forms, music is the one that produces the most direct connection to the depths of the human psyche. The writer of fiction and poetry has to have some kind of conscious recognition (even a rudimentary one) of what he is trying to evoke*. The artist has to encounter a vision (either externally, within his mind, or in most cases some combination) and then capture on the canvas the internal effect of that image. While their have been instances of cinematic masterpieces coming out of a group of who collectively had no clear ideas about what the were aiming for, this can be attributed to the bizarre mechanics of group behavior as well as dumb luck. Only in music can someone produce something that directly speaks to the deepest levels of the mind without having any understanding of what they have just evoked. The low formal requirements of rock and roll and its progeny make it especially susceptible to this.

The flipside is that, unlike other mediums, in which a creator can skate by with something that has an exclusively intellectual value, it is a requirement that music make some kind of connection beyond what can be appreciated directly by cognition. This can be emotional, sensational, archetypal, psychic**, or pneumatic. This is the reason that music criticism is so difficult, and why music critics are significantly less vital than any other variety of critic***. This does not mean that music that is more passionate is automatically superior to music that is less so. Kraftwerk and Joy Division both created music that is deliberately cold, and at the same time says something both direct and profound about the human experience. By contrast the saccharine over-emoting of early 70's California folk-rock and 90's r&b is so one dimensional and overdrawn as to be alienating to all but the unrefined and tempestuous (hence the popularity of both forms with teenagers).

Lyrics

Lyrics can either be in the service of music, where the rule of their value is how well they amplify the emotional content of the music, or they can be the focal point of the composition, with the music serving to enhance the effect of the words. This is not a binary distinction but a sliding scale, with a band like Slayer sitting close to one end and the music of Bob Dylan exemplifying the latter. Both ends of the spectrum (and any intermediary point) are perfectly acceptable means of expression.

Righteousness

A precious and elusive quantity, this righteousness. Needless to say most punk rock is not exactly ODing on it****. In fact, most punk rockers probably think it's the purview of hippies...

It's kinda hard to put into mere mortal words, but I guess I should say that being righteous means you're more or less on the side of the angels, waging Armageddon for the ultimate victory of the forces of Good over the Kingdom of Death (see how perilously we skirt hippiedom here?), working to enlighten others as to their own possibilities rather than merely sprawling in the muck yodeling about what a drag everything is.

The righteous minstrel may be rife with lamentations and criticisms of the existing order, but even if he doesn't have a coherent program for social change he is informed of hope. The MC5 were righteous where the Stooges were not. The third and fourth Velvet Underground albums were righteous, while the first and second weren't... Patti Smith is righteous. The Stones have flirted with righteousness (e.g. Salt of the Earth), but when they were good the Beatles were all-righteous. The Sex Pistols are not righteous, but, perhaps more than any other new wave band, the Clash are.

-Lester Bangs, “The Clash”

This will likely be the heading that alienates the largest portion of the audience I am interested in appealing to. It is also in many ways the most subjective. I do not have the energy nor likely you the patience to read through a treatise on ethics, but even without venturing out that far, save the nihilists among you, we all affirm some kind of meaning (and by no means a religious or a philosophical one) to existence. Since those who don't see any value in the game tend to stop playing it, save those possessed of either cowardice or “Notes from Underground”-esque levels of spite, this seems a rather self-evident thing to say. Just as self-evident is the fact that music can either assert or deny this meaning. What I mean is that some music recognizes something vital in the existence of humanity and some music denies this. Ultimately, I am of the belief that a musician who affirms is superior to one who denies, all other things being close to equal.

This does not mean that the music has to be upbeat or positive. Sanctuary's “Future Tense” is so deep in the waters of bleakness that it submerges the listener in the inky tide. Yet its darkness only serves to point out the absence of the sun (and hence the sun's existence). Its cry against modern hedonism and froth-at-the-mouth culture only stings insofar as one harbors hope of something better. As Morpheus says to Lucifer “What power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?"

Of all my criteria, this is both the most recent and the most personal in its nature and my application of it. However, events in my life have compelled me to place a higher value of the righteous than the nihilistic. This is also where I remain the most flexible. The second VU album is a masterpiece despite its utter contempt for literally everything, so are a number of Black Metal albums. At the same time, I believe that the Odinistic influence provided an affirming direction that tends to raise Black Metal with a Viking temperament higher than its morose peers.

Culture

Because the gifts of musical ability are bestowed evenly across humanity, the music on any given cultural or subcultural spectrum will have a relatively uniform distribution of quality. The exception to this is where outside forces shape the environment, most notably in how the drive to appeal to as broad a consumer base as possible renders the curve of commercial music a little flat and puffs up genres where there is little chance of financial success by assuring only those with a deep interest remain.

While every genre of music has its highs and lows, I, like ever other human whose interest in music has progressed beyond the passive absorption, lean more toward some forms and styles than others. Due to this, I think it is only fair that I briefly repress my urge to avoid pigeonholing myself so that those interested can get some sense of what I value personally. Especially regarding music, the idea of objectivity is utterly empty, so everything I write will reek of delusion if I cannot come out and tell the reader directly which of the numerous methodologies for the arrangement of sound has, in the broadest of assessments, has tended to have the greatest impact. Then, one who does not share my peculiarities is equipped to both diminish the value of my praise regarding styles that I naturally move towards and give extra attention to those points where my baseline sensibility meets theirs. Plus, in those occasions where I speak highly of a piece of music that does not naturally appeal to me, one can properly understand the significance of this statement; either the piece so excels beyond its peers that it demands special attention from even an outsider, or it moves away from the general trends of similar artists towards areas I find more appealing.

As a general rule I prefer the experimental and avant-garde to the traditional. I have a polarizing tendency to be attracted to both the most ornate and primitive. I have great appreciation for the craftsmanship involved in good songwriting, but I often grow bored when these skills are held by people without a coherent vision. The genres I value highest are most subgenres of metal, experimental rock, punk (with all the standard prefixes: proto, post, hardcore, and their various combinations), and Krautrock. I also have a significant interest in folk music, the better pop of the 1960s, indie rock, and some prog.

*This applies to a much greater extent towards fiction than poetry, though in both cases my point that there must be some kind of recognition by the conscious mind in the form of the words themselves is by definition essential. This is not to say a poet (or even a writer of fiction) cannot produce a work that is predominantly influenced by the images of the unconscious, but there is a fundamental distinction between even the most abstract poetry and free association, and that distinction is the presence of the conscious mind and the will. For a more detailed treatment of this subject, see C.G. Jung's “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry”, at the moment available online here.

**In the Greek and Psychoanalytic sense, not in the sense of a seer or medium.

***Unless you wish to include video game critics, which you shouldn't.

****Note that this piece was written in late 1977 about the early British punk of bands like “Sex Pistols” and “Buzzcocks”, and his assessment only includes those groups as well as the American punk pioneers like “The Stooges” and “Rocket from the Tombs” and not the 1980s hardcore punk bands that often seethe in righteousness. While the assessment may seem odd to a modern reader, check the release dates on your punk albums and you'll see his assessment is reasonably accurate.